French General Tax Code
In forceThe retail sales monopoly is entrusted to the administration, which exercises it, under conditions and according to procedures laid down by decree, through the intermediary of tobacconists designated as its agents and liable to licence fees, holders of the buyer-reseller status referred to in the last paragraph, or through the intermediary of resellers who are required to obtain their supplies of manufactured tobacco exclusively from the tobacconists designated above.
A tobacco retailer may only run his business in the legal form of a sole proprietorship or a general partnership in which all the partners are natural persons. However, this latter condition is not required of a tobacconist who holds a licence to occupy the public domain. In this case, the operator may be a general partnership with partners who are legal entities. The conditions for operating a tobacconist's shop are set by decree.
In the event that the activity is carried out in the form of a general partnership:
- the activity of selling tobacco must be included in the corporate purpose;
- all commercial activities and the activity of retailing manufactured tobacco are managed under the same legal form of operation;
- the general partnership assumes the assets and liabilities of all the activities, including, for companies already formed, the liabilities of the tobacco sales activity prior to the extension of the corporate purpose;
- each of the partners must meet all the approval conditions set by decree.
For each tax category of tobacco, the rate of licence duty applied to the discount referred to in 3° of I of Article 570 is set in accordance with the table below:
Year | Rate (in %) |
|---|---|
From 1 January 2022 | 17.729 |
Licence duty is payable when manufactured tobacco is released for consumption. It is settled by the suppliers mentioned in article 565.1, by the 10th of each month at the latest, on the basis of a declaration of the quantities delivered to the retailer during the previous month sent to the administration. It is paid to the authorities on the 5th of the month following the month of settlement, by the same suppliers and on behalf of the operators. Until 31 December 2022, except in the case of tobacconists incorporated as general partnerships whose partners are legal entities, the tax authorities will refund the sums collected in respect of the licence fee up to an annual turnover threshold of €157,303 for deliveries of manufactured tobacco in mainland France and €125,842 for deliveries in Corsica. The refund is reserved for tobacconists whose manufactured tobacco deliveries for the previous year totalled less than €500,000. It is paid annually on the basis of monthly declarations of deliveries made to each tobacconist, sent by suppliers by the ninth day of the following month at the latest. A decree sets the terms and conditions for the application of this paragraph.
The licence fee referred to in the first paragraph is recorded, collected and audited in accordance with the rules specific to indirect taxes.
Purchasers-resellers of manufactured tobacco are natural or legal persons approved by the Directorate General of Customs and Indirect Duties, who operate sales counters located within the confines of a port, airport or Channel Tunnel terminal or shops on board means of transport, which are authorised pursuant to 2° of Article L. 311-39 of the code of taxes on goods and services and which sell manufactured tobacco only to travellers holding a transport ticket mentioning a destination other than mainland France, under conditions set by decree in the Council of State.
